"You have no faith . . . Everything we possess—your happiness, our love, the children you'll give me—don't you hold it all at the sword's point? You're afraid of death or change?"
"Yes."
"How frank you are!" Isabel smiled fleetingly. "Aren't there any locked doors?—no?—I may go wherever I like ?—Lawrence, are you sorry Val's dead?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, not Val again!"
"One locked door after all?"
"I was fond of him," said Lawrence with difficult passion. "He told me once that I broke his life, it was no one's doing but mine that he had to go through the crucifixion of that last hour at Wanhope, and he was killed for me." He left her and went to the window, flung it up and stood looking out into the night. "I'd have given my life to save him. I'd give it now—now."
"I heard from Laura this morning."
"I wonder she dared write to you."
"Major Clowes is wonderfully better. He drives out with her every day and mixes with other people in the sanatorium and makes friends with them. He's been sleeping better than he has ever done since his accident."
"Good God!"